2010 Reprint of 1927 English Edition. Adler provides a practical understanding of how childhood shapes adult life, which in turn might benefit society as a whole. Unlike the culturally elitist Freud, Adler believed that the work of understanding should not be the preserve of psychologists alone, but a vital undertaking for everyone to pursue, given the bad consequences of ignorance. This approach to psychology was unusually democratic for psychoanalytic circles. It is a work that anyone can read and understand.

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Most helpful customer reviews

...The purpose of the book is first to point out how the misguided behaviour of the individual affects the harmony of our social and communal life; second, to teach individuals to recognise their own mistakes; and finaly, to show them how to adjust harmoniously to their social environment... This book is thus dedicated to the task of illuminating humankind`s progress towards a better understanding of human nature. {Alfred Adler}As relevent today as when it was written. Realy pleasure to read.

Adler is an excellent writer, and his simple language and the clarity of his thoughts make this a great read, but his advice and theories leave me with a bit of a hole. It seems that he too often illustrates all the negative aspects of certain types of human behaviour stemming from various childhood experiences without offering any type of solution to the problems. He might throw in a short paragraph of advice at the end of a passage but overall it is a negative message he seems to be sending out. With his thinking, it seems like any above-average human like an actor or a musician is not a gifted person, but someone who wasn't given enough attention when they were young and is now overcompensating for this. That is a very pessimistic outlook and I don't neccesarily think we can simplify it like that. All of this intellectual and scientific thinking only belittles the human spirit and drive and makes it seem like we are machines rather than souls. Overall, though this is a fine book, but dont look for any solutions of how to be a great social person, read it if you want to understand what kind of a person you don't want to be.

Alfred Adler (1870-1937), the first heretic of psychoanalysis, barely scraped through childhood. The second of six children of a Viennese grain merchant, he suffered from rickets and spasms of the glottis. He almost died on several occasions from pneumonia and street accidents. In the cot alongside him when he was three, his nearest younger brother did actually die of diphtheria. Undaunted, however, by his diminutive stature (5' 2") or by his maths' teacher's pessimistic forecasts, he succeeded in medical school, in ophthalmology, in family life and eventually, despite Freud's preferring to advance the established Gentile psychiatrist, Carl Jung, in popularising a form of psychoanalysis. True to his own history, Adler would see competition between peers for resources as much more important than incestuous infantile sexuality. Now there is a pleasant yet authentic, new, and of course 'non-sexist' translation of one of his best-known works.

Today, some of Adler's proposals are admittedly a little creaky. Adler tended to maintain that 'lifestyle' crystallizes by one's first birthday. He held intelligence testing (even of the 'g' factor) to be "unreliable"; and genetic inheritance of intelligence (or of anything else psychological) was a "superstition". Adler feared 'labelling' effects by which he believed he himself had almost been retarded. Homosexuality involved a rift with the *opposite*-sex parent. Educational streaming was unhelpful. Smaller classes would improve educational standards. And full employment would reduce the crime problem until teachers trained in Adlerian theory solved it in perpetuity.

More alarming to likely readers of the present volume will be several deviations from Adler's general utopian idealism and political correctness. Adler favours free society's notorious 'division of labour' and the provision of relevant specialist education: he is even content to educate girls differently from boys, in view of girls' forthcoming life-tasks. Monogamy-plus-children is the only marital arrangement worth considering, and wicked old European psychiatrists were wrong to recommend that their patients take lovers. Pre-marital intercourse is discouraged. And 'pampering' is ceaselessly denounced by Adler as yielding later 'whingeing' and 'whining' "neurotics, criminals, drunkards and perverts."

Nevertheless, there are three main propositions of Adler's that are, with qualification, especially consonant with modern understandings and researches. (1) Individuality. Twin and adoption studies of the 1980's showed people are indeed 'radically individual', as Adler maintained. Only for general intelligence do biological relatives other than identical twins much resemble each other; and unrelated adoptees who grow up together show virtually no psychological similarities at all by adulthood. 50% of eminent people (U.S.Presidents, British Prime Ministers, first-rank world-class philosophers, eminences of English literature, and top British businessmen) turn out to have experienced major horrors in childhood such as serious medical conditions and parental death and bankruptcy, so compensation is as likely as capitulation providing intelligence is adequate. However, to rule out the imposed environment and to admit only a limited role for inheritance on personality is not to rule out genes. Indeed, genes -- in particular, 'gene packages' and the multiplier effects between different genes that cannot be simply passed on to children because genes segregate independently -- now come into their own as a way of explaining otherwise paradoxical human diversity. (2) The unconscious. Adler's view of the unconscious was non-mysterious and non-dynamic. The unconscious-to-conscious relation is as "photo-to- negative": by just one lie to oneself, the unconscious can realize the master plan arrived at by consciousness. ('I have been rejected'; 'I am really superior'; or 'I have an excuse'.) Once such simple re-drafts of the story (or 'document') of one's life occur (cf. Margaret Donaldson, 1992), the 'lifestyle' derived from the 'guiding fiction' takes over whether one is awake or asleep. In dreams, the Adlerian unconscious can sometimes be caught engaged in the very same problem-solving work as goes on in daily life, yet without the constraints of reality. This view of dreams as a continuation of daytime speculations, anxieties and re-organising of accounts is more plausible than Freud's view that dreams provide disguised fulfilment of forbidden wishes. (3) Competition and co-operation. At least by 1918, when he added the concept of 'social interest' (altruism) to his first personality process of 'personal interest' (egoism), Adler was arguably on the right track. Despite having lost both Adler and Jung over 'the doctrine of sexuality', Freud himself, by 1922, came to the view that eros was not in fact enough, even when id was considered in harness with superego. Belatedly, room had to be made for thanatos, the omnipresent death-wish that would help explain masochism, the horrors and hysterias of war, the mind's 'repetition compulsion' to dwell on painful stimulation and memories, and perhaps the aggressive elimination of pain and competitors.

Was Adler right? Well, in making personal interest and social interest not opposed to, but independent of each other, he can certainly be said to have anticipated the relations obtaining between today's 'Big' personality dimensions of 'Independence' (will, disagreeableness) and 'Tender- mindedness' (affection, and 'g'-free openness) (Brand, Egan & Deary, 1993). However, Adler's more lasting contribution to psychology will prove to have been in insisting on radical individuality, in some ontogenetic stories that merit careful testing, and in his addressing aspects of human personality that Freud gloomly packaged as thanatos and then left in an eerie limbo. Adler granted others the possibility of what he might without immodesty have observed in himself: will, achievement-striving, a strong sense of responsibility, assertiveness, self-help and 'personal interest' alongside soul, sympathy, tender-mindedness, idealism and 'social interest'. If they can grasp the importance of genes and 'g', Adlerians might still help face down the crudely determinist -- mainly environmentalist -- psychologies of the past.

The author, Alfred Adler, died a decade after the volume under review was published (1927). Like Sigmund Freud with whom he spent nearly ten years interacting, he came from a Jewish background. His father was a successful Viennese merchant whose cheerfulness and confidence were greatly admired by the young Alfred. Mr. Adler influenced his children mainly through encouraging words and deeds. Mrs. Adler on the other hand was not anything like her husband in optimism, and enthusiasm, but seemed to have displayed the very complex of inferiority that her son later popularized.

Alfred's childhood was marked by several, what could be termed, traumatic experiences in that, barely three years, he woke up to find a brother lifeless - one with whom he had shared the same bed. Pneumonia and Ricketts were two diseases which threatened his life from within, while two street accidents made the same bid from without. After a somewhat turbulent time in school, he blossomed into a fine student, taking his medical degree in 1895 at the age of 25. Two years later he married Miss Raissa Eptstein, a Russian, who was to greatly influence his view of complementarian marriage. After a general practice in medicine, he began to develop a lasting interest in the study of psychiatry. His work with children after World War I, was to eventually shape his views on personality, which are expressed in his Theory of Individual Psychology.

Understanding Human Nature is an attempt by Adler to familiarize the public at large with his theory of Individual Psychology - at lease with the elements of it. In the preface he outlines his objective thus:

The purpose of the book is to point out how the mistaken behaviour of the individual affects The harmony of our social and communal life; further, to teach the individual to recognize his own mistakes, and finally, to show him how he may effect a harmonious adjustment to the communal life. Mistakes in business or in science are costly and deplorable, but mistakes in the conduct of life are usually dangerous to life itself. To the task of illuminating man's progress toward a better understanding of human nature, this book is dedicated.

The book gives a broad overview of human conduct, grappling with such issues as the inner principle of life, the relationship of this principle to community life, the influences of childhood on later life, and the motive and function of mental processes, such as perception and imagination. It also discusses, in the second section - the traits, expressions, and perversions of personality,with the final chapter focusing on certain specialized emotional manifestations. The implications of the author's observations for education are briefly set out in the appendix. The magnitude of the task of really understanding human nature does not go unnoticed by Adler. But though there are pitfalls in attempting to write such a book, he feels the benefits far outweigh the risks in undertaking such an ambitious project.

The chief benefit of understanding human nature, according to our author, would not only be an increased awareness of ourselves, but a life of harmony with our fellowmen. He states quite optimistically, "Human beings would live together more easily if their knowledge of human nature were more satisfactory," and again on another page, "Human beings would doubtless get along with each other better, and would approach each other more closely, were they able to understand one another better."

But if the pursuit of this knowledge is so important, why is it that not much progress has been made in this area? Adler feels that our isolated life style has greatly militated against such treasure hunt. His journey on the road to better self-awareness begins with a discussion on "soul" - the psychic life. His concept of this principles is limited to organisms that move, presumably, such as insects, animals and man, because "those organisms which are strongly rooted have no necessity for a soul". Though the soul is inherited, it is not transmitted whole, but passes through a stage of evolution. The function is then delineated in terms of its self-preserving role in the individual.

His thesis of Individual Psychology as it relates to the soul is that every expression of the psychic life is directed toward a particular objective. If the goal of an individual can be ascertained by, say, therapies, he would have gone a long way in helping such an individual on the way to wholeness. Because of the centrality of the soul in Adler's understanding of life, he indulges in a thorough discussion of its role in social intercourse, and childhood, having been convinced (like others before him) that the dynamics of the latter overly influence the stages of adulthood.

One senses the author's strength in his discussion of early childhood phenomena. He was well informed by his own childhood experience, and experiments with children later in life. He is convinced that "the basis of educatability lies in the striving of the child to compensate for his weaknesses. A thousand talents and capabilities arise from the stimulus of inadequacy". This "inadequacy" theme is interestingly developed in chapter 5 entitled "The Feeling of Inferiority and the Striving for Recognition."

What can be said of Adler's human and life view as seen through the lenses of his Individual Psychology? First some general impressions. The reader will have a sense of excitement from the very outset, because the author's preface promises much. Because of this, s/he will likely accompany the writer on his climb to self awareness - yearning, hoping, and praying that the trek uphill would contribute even in some small measure to his/her own self-understanding.

One big plus of this book is its clarity of thought and wealth of theoretical and practical insights (with the former outweighing the latter). Maybe the credit for the book's clear expressions should be shared, no doubt, with the translator. These two points are supported and illustrated by Adler's consistent attempt to define certain key terms. For instance: "What we call a character trait is the appearance of some specific mode of expression on the part of an individual who is attempting to adjust himself to the world in which he lives".

On the debit side, the work is marred at times by over generalisation, (such as "people who bite their nails are necessarily stubborn"; and scientific inaccuracies like "There is evidence to prove that it (Male dominance) occurred chiefly as a result of constant battles between primitive people, during the course of which man assumed the more prominent role as warrior, and finally used his newly won superiority in order to retain the leadership for himself...."

Although Adler uses the term "soul" quite often, one gets the impression that it is not used necessarily in the "Christian" sense (though his idea of soul as "life principle" is scriptural) or an entity distinct from the body. Soul to him is simply a function of the body. Of course, this whole point is debatable, and Adler, though baptized a protestant at age 34, should not be faulted here. Though the work is significantly dated, I was not only challenged but informed by it. A final critique; his view that knowledge of human nature would automatically lead to the better life is naive at best. Scripture and experience seem to strongly challenge such assumption. Here I think Adler's optimism lacks realism.

19 of 26 people found the following review helpful

Very Good, yet somehow unsatisfyingDec 31 2001

By
A Person
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

Adler is an excellent writer, and his simple language and the clarity of his thoughts make this a great read, but his advice and theories leave me with a bit of a hole. It seems that he too often illustrates all the negative aspects of certain types of human behaviour stemming from various childhood experiences without offering any type of solution to the problems. He might throw in a short paragraph of advice at the end of a passage but overall it is a negative message he seems to be sending out. With his thinking, it seems like any above-average human like an actor or a musician is not a gifted person, but someone who wasn't given enough attention when they were young and is now overcompensating for this. That is a very pessimistic outlook and I don't neccesarily think we can simplify it like that. All of this intellectual and scientific thinking only belittles the human spirit and drive and makes it seem like we are machines rather than souls. Overall, though this is a fine book, but dont look for any solutions of how to be a great social person, read it if you want to understand what kind of a person you don't want to be.

13 of 19 people found the following review helpful

UNDERSTANDING HUMAN NATURENov. 9 2000

By
adrianaFerenzi
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

...The purpose of the book is first to point out how the misguided behaviour of the individual affects the harmony of our social and communal life; second, to teach individuals to recognise their own mistakes; and finaly, to show them how to adjust harmoniously to their social environment... This book is thus dedicated to the task of illuminating humankind`s progress towards a better understanding of human nature. {Alfred Adler}As relevent today as when it was written. Realy pleasure to read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Very good book with good perspective of understanding human natureFeb. 5 2012

By
Zizhuo Wang
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback
Verified Purchase

I am not a professional psychologist but am interested in this topic. This book lays out a clear point of how the human personality is formed. The standpoint is well explained and I feel strongly resonant on some of the discussions. It is also well written and I would think it as a very good book for those who are interested in introductory psychology.